Today, everyone is looking to Apple as the Cupertino-company launches new M4-powered Macs in a series of announcements that are supposed to rollout this week. Likely this includes new MacBook Pros, iMacs and a redesigned Mac Mini.
However, the Apple-whisperer over at Bloomberg, Mark Gurman, kicked the week off with a report speculating Apple's next system-on-chip the M5 and when it debut. According to him, we will see the M5 in 2025 and like the the M4 will release on an iPad Pro before we see the chip in any other Apple products.
However, unlike the M4-powered iPad Pro that debut in May of this year, it sounds like the M5 version won't hit until late 2025. Early rumors suggest that it might debut in October with the other usual autumnal launches. This is because the M5 processor isn't supposed to launch until the end of next year. Gurman even suggests that we might not see the M5 iPad Pro until early 2026.
Unfortunately, this is the most we know about how much more efficient or powerful an M5 chip will be. Earlier this year it was speculated that the M5 might be a 2nm chip — a more powerful node with more transistors than the 3nm M4 available now.
While Apple appeared to rush out the M4 chipset with the M3 was barely six months into it's lifecycle, it's unlikely that they will do something similar with the M5 SoC. Previously, there were 18 months between cycle refreshes. It's probable that Apple is looking to return to a similar schedule.
It is surprising that Apple will continue to launch their new silicon on iPads over laptops or desktop computers. This does suggest that Apple is prioritizing efficiency over performance, as a tablet will need to sip that battery life a lot more stringently than the larger cells of a laptop or the wired power of a Mac desktop.
Previous rumors have suggested that at least two M5-powered iPad Pros are coming next year, potentially with Wi-Fi and cellular variants. Gurman also suggested that a "new low-end iPad" will launch next year.
We've seen speculation about that device before and believe that the entry-level iPad refresh will launch around March next year alongside a desperately needed updated iPhone SE 4 and an upgraded iPad Air.
